Microsoft’s Dance Along the Fine Line of Innovation and Responsibility

It’s been a while, so let’s kick it off with some present-day strange activity which shakes hands with eyebrow raising history.

Maybe you’ve heard of Microsoft’s work on topological qubits and their latest development, Majorana 1 and if you haven’t well now you will.  Topological qubits leverage Majorana fermions to improve quantum computing reliability.

Still confused? Click here. 

Azure Quantum is the platform Microsoft has used to develop this quantum computing. Who’s invested in that you might ask? Intel, Honeywell, Qualcomm, IonQ & QCI, along with a few research institutions and universities. And then obviously, Microsoft has poured money into themselves…through their investors, Vanguard, Blackrock, Berkshire Hathaway, Gates foundation, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Capital Group, blah blah blah. As soon as you saw Vanguard you should’ve already known this isn’t looking good, and followed by Blackrock you should’ve known we are practically in the deep end now (and if you can’t grasp that, maybe I’ll post another long yap on those heathens).  

Ok let’s take it back now y’all.

Ettore Majorana was a genius, a marvelous man…an absolute chef’s kiss of a physicist. Majorana was sort of an “underground” physicist; he did not go in the public eye or publish many of his discoveries such as the neutron and formulation of exchange forces (nuclear bonding).  His contributions to theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, and his work on neutrinos and particles which we know as Majorana fermions changed the world.   In total he published around 10 papers, most of which he was pressured or pushed into posting. In fact, he often let others take credit for work which he was the proprietor of.

In 1937 Ettore Majorana was pressured into publishing an article he wrote in 1932 that had been casually hiding in his desk. “Teoria simmetrica dei elettroni e dei positroni” (no we’re not talking pasta here).

This paper was his biggest contribution to theoretical physics…and later would lead on to Microsoft’s breakthrough with the Majorana 1 chip.  He publishes this paper in 1937, despite already having written it five years prior. Then he gets fired or quits (?) from the University of Naples, and shortly after in early 1938 he vanishes into thin air….right before the kickoff of WWII in 1939.

Now it gets juicy. So remember how Majorana let others take credit for some of his discoveries. Who are these others? Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, James Chadwick, Iwaneko, and Fermi.  When his mentor, Fermi, tried to persuade Majorana to publish his material, he replied “Heisenberg had said all there was to be said, and had probably said too much”.  

Majorana and Heisenberg had many interactions and a good developmental relationship. Both were part of the European Theoretical Physics Community in the 19030s, and both developed the foundations of quantum mechanics.  However, Bohr and Majorana did not have a direct or personal relationship and interactions were much less prominent.

Why does that matter? Heisenberg was one of the best physicists in Germany. He aided the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938, and worked on Germany’s unsuccessful nuclear bomb project alongside Otto Hahn and Max von Laue (who were also familiar with Majorana).  The “Heisenberg Controversy” started off with Niels Bohr questioning if Heisenberg had purposefully held back progress on the German Bomb directly after the war. This led to Heisenberg undergoing interrogations by the Allies after the war. Bohr escaped Denmark in 1939-40 and came to the United States become involved in the Manhattan Project, eventually assisting the development of  the atomic bomb.  In 1945, after the war, Heisenberg and Bohr had a conversation in which Heisenberg stated he had never intended to build a bomb for the Nazis.

Did Ettore Majorana foresee the invention of the nuclear bomb and withdraw himself from society after publishing a paper that he had sat on for 5 years that he knew would heavily aid the development of theoretical physics, particle physics and nuclear physics?

Swing back into current day with the Majorana 1, monopoly, concentration of power, cryptography, pharmaceuticals, energy, (if you can’t already see these issues please go back to Instagram brain rot), carbon footprints & electronic waste to use and develop these things, use of liquid helium, global security, privacy, individual rights (or what we have left of those anyways), are just a few issues that can come from this advancement.

Now that a multinational tech company has harnessed Majorana fermions, what will this lead to?

Quantum computing’s transformative potential can essentially squash existing ethical systematics, and the inkling of possibility that the man who conjured up these concepts disappeared due to the impacts he knew it would bring should have everyone second guessing Majorana 1. Circling back to throw a cherry on top of this unsavory milkshake, let’s not forget who Microsoft’s main investors are.